I was able to take a lot of weekend trips during my time in Rome! This is me in Pompeii!

Author: Isabella Thompson | Major: Political Science, International Studies | Semester: Summer 2024

My name is Isabella Thompson. I am a junior at the University of Arkansas majoring in Political Science and International Studies and minoring in Italian. This summer, I was given the opportunity to participate in the Internship Program put on by the University of Arkansas Rome Center. Thanks to the generosity of the Honors College, I was able to spend ten weeks working at a non-profit organization and studying Italian in Rome, Italy. My internship was at a non-profit called Hummustown, and their mission is to assist Syrian and other Arabic refugees in Rome and introduce people to Syrian culture and food. When speaking to my boss for the summer, Shaza Saker, she said that my main goals for the summer should be to hear as many stories as I could and learn something new every day. When looking back over the summer, I believe I did just that.

When I first arrived in Rome, I didn’t quite know what my role at Hummustown would be. I knew that they mostly specialized in serving Syrian food at different events and executing their mission through cooking, but I had very little experience in a kitchen, restaurant, or as a caterer. When I first met Shaza in person, she told me that I would be doing some behind-the-scenes work, like marketing and writing articles for social media, but the rest of the time I would be helping out in the restaurant. This was definitely not what I was expecting, but I quickly learned to adapt to my new role and decided to make the most of my summer. For the take-home work, I designed several flyers promoting events, I designed menus for the restaurant, and I wrote an article about sustainability practices within Hummustown for the website. For the hands-on work, I started working twice a week at the restaurant they owned and I met some of the most amazing people. The cooks and waitresses at the restaurant were all people who had come to Rome from places like Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and other countries in hope of a better life and a new start. Every day, I would hear a different story about my coworkers’ hometowns and their lives before coming to Italy, and their stories were always so incredible to listen to. I got really close with one of my coworkers, and her name was Matia. She came from Damascus, and she was in Italy to get a degree. She would spend her mornings and afternoons at the restaurant, then she would go home and study all night for her classes on the weekends. She had this amazing passion for learning and would always come to work and tell me about everything she was studying. Her favorite subject was history and archeology, so I would get to hear about different civilizations almost every week. I also got close with my coworker Zaina. She was from Gaza, but her family moved to Syria last year while she came to Rome to pursue a degree at Sapienza University. She and I would always talk about the different dishes our moms cooked that we missed the most. For her, she would always talk about dishes with loads of vegetables, spices, and different types of meats. She would describe the dishes in so much detail that at times I felt like I could almost taste them myself. The dish I missed the most was my mom’s homemade mac and cheese, which she would always laugh at. These day-to-day conversations with the people I worked with made my entire summer and Shaza was completely right: it is the connections we make and the stories we hear that open up our minds to new possibilities. I learned so much from this internship and the people I met there. So even though the summer didn’t quite look like what I expected it to, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.